


And in '29, I'll do Mickey Mouse

by Ariel_Tempest



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Cheer up, Fluff, Humor, Lead Up To Relationship, Missing Scene, Mockery, Movie Spoilers, Spoilers, funny voices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 06:11:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21248741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariel_Tempest/pseuds/Ariel_Tempest
Summary: In an attempt to cheer Thomas up after Carson is reinstated, Mr. Ellis introduces him to a hobby of his...





	And in '29, I'll do Mickey Mouse

**Author's Note:**

> I am over 95% certain that when the DVD comes out we'll get an official version of this scene. How Thomas knew Richard would help the Downton Staff just seems like too glaring an omission to be anything other than a cut scene.
> 
> Until then, here is my take on it.
> 
> Thanks to Hinny_B for betaing!

Thomas leaned his head against the yard wall and closed his eyes, holding the smoke in his lungs for a count of ten and then releasing it slowly. He took three breaths of clean, summer air, then raised his cigarette to his lips again. Normally smoking helped steady his nerves, but he still felt shaky and unsettled. He wanted to run away, but he’d already done that, really. He wanted to lash out at someone, to share his pain with the world, but he was trying not to be that person anymore, trying until it made his eyes sting and his head ache. 

Although, did it really matter? He probably didn’t have a job anymore anyway.

He opened his eyes and stared blankly up at the few clouds drifting through the sky. He’d had everything worked out, before Mr. Wilson arrived. Everyone was busy, everything was getting done. So he hadn’t wanted to waste time buffing silver they weren’t going to use. What of it? The base polish had been done. It would have been the work of a few minutes, half an hour if Mr. Wilson had liked what he saw, to get it up to snuff. The footmen had better things to do with their time.

Having met the Royal Staff, he was fairly certain that they would come bearing their own silver and even the work he and Andrew had done would be wasted. Hell, he wouldn’t be surprised to discover they brought their own beds, wardrobes, and the bloody Royal kitchen sink.

He’d actually been happy to see Carson at first, ready for any distraction from the endless cleaning altered with suggestions that he somehow find a way to make Mr. Wilson respect the staff when he returned. He’d have welcomed some news for the village or even an offer for old shaky paws to help with the buffing.

Instead he’d been replaced. 

Again.

He lifted the cigarette to his lips only to discover that it had burnt down nearly to his fingers. He dropped the fag end on the ground and fished out another. 

He had no reason to think Lord Grantham would ask him to take up his previous duties when all of this was over. Not after he snapped and certainly not after he’d left the room without waiting to be dismissed. It would have been worse if he’d stayed though. In the fifteen years since Bates had been hired, he’d nearly forgotten the sting of being told that he was being replaced by someone physically incapable of doing the job. The sudden news that Carson was being reinstated, that he would be demoted from ‘butler’ to ‘sort of’ brought it all back with suffocating force.

He’d wanted to scream.

He’d wanted to resurrect every crude term he’d picked up over the years, from the lads back home; the other servants; the RAM; all of them, and throw them at the pampered, privileged people in front of him.

But he couldn’t do that. 

Not when he’d gotten in so much trouble over the years. Not when they’d given him the job they were now taking away, saving him from a slow death by boredom in Driffield. 

He’d have not only been out a job, he’d have had no review and likely been jailed. 

So he’d stormed out before he could do something he regretted - more than he already had, anyway - and hopefully when it was all over Lord Grantham would say something about how he’d been wrong to think he could handle the stress of a big house and of course he could have a nice review to help land him another job someplace smaller and more suitable. And Carson would polish the bloody silver and who knew who would serve the wine and…

“Decided it was time for a break, Mr. Barrow?” a friendly voice cut through his inner self-flagellation. Startled, Thomas raised his eyes from the tip of his cigarette and found Mr. Ellis crossing the yard. He really must have been caught up in his thoughts to have missed the other man’s footsteps.

Thomas’s mouth jerked into an uneasy smile. Part of it was his instinctual reaction to the possibility of someone noticing he was distressed. Simply smile and pretend there’s no problem, no one will ever know. But he couldn’t deny that part of it was an uncontrollable, physical manifestation of the butterflies that settled in his stomach at the sight of the other man; of the sun hitting the line of his hat and coat; of the reflections in the blue of his eyes. God, he hadn’t felt this taken with a man since Jimmy, and all he could do was pray that the King’s dresser didn’t notice. “About time, yes,” he agreed, the cheer in his voice sounding only slightly strained to his ear. Then it hit him that no matter how well he lied, the other man was going to find out the truth as soon as he walked through the door and found Carson ordering the staff around. His smile faded to a grimace. “Well, sort of,” he admitted. “The family actually decided that the Royal visit required a butler with more than a year and half’s experience leading a big house, so I’ve been…replaced, for the duration.” He tried not to sound bitter about it, but it was so damn hard. “The former butler, Mr. Carson, will be taking my place.”

The other man frowned a touch, his expression thoughtful. “Mr. Carson? Didn’t I hear someone say he was Mrs. Hughes’s husband?”

“Yes,” Thomas replied, a touch over brightly.

“And didn’t he step down because his hands were shaking?”

“Yes.” Despite his best effort, the brightness dimmed and the bitterness he’d been fighting crept in to take its place.

Mr. Ellis gave him a long, searching look, which Thomas tried to ignore by busying himself taking a drag off of his cigarette. “Well,” the other man finally said, his tone as light as Thomas had tried to make his. “I’d consider myself lucky, if I were you.”

It was not the response Thomas had expected. Admittedly, he didn’t know what he had expected, but not that. “Lucky?”

“Quite.” A conspiratorial grin graced the other man’s face as he continued, “After all, you’re a free man now. It will be this ‘Mr. Carson’ who has to deal with the King’s Page of the Backstairs.”

He had a point and Thomas would have commented on the fact, but he was too busy choking on laughter and smoke. “Blimey!” he finally gasped. “You sounded just like him! How did you do that?”

Mr. Ellis shrugged. “Just a hobby of mine, doing voices. I’ve been doing it since I was a lad. Used to get into all sorts of trouble for mimicking the school master.”

“I can just see it!” Thomas’s earlier irritation ebbed away, like frost before the sunlight, driven off by the image of a young Mr. Ellis cheekily mimicking some stuffy professor. “Can you do anyone else important? Can you do the King?”

“You may be the only person in the kingdom to consider Mr. Wilson important, except of course Mr. Wilson.” The quietly cheeky grin didn’t fade. “And I daren’t do the King. Even my impertinence only goes so far. But the downstairs staff, so long as they’re male, I can generally manage.” He paused, thinking about it. “I don’t see the hall boys enough to manage, and the footmen all sound alike, I swear it. But Mr. Wilson, Monsieur Courbet, Mr. Hill - he’s the head groom, I can mimic them all fairly well. I’m particularly good the Comptroller of the Household, Sir Harry Barnston, but you won’t be meeting him.”

“What does Monsieur Courbet sound like?” Thomas asked, as fascinated as he was amused. He’d not met the man yet, of course, but he would be the following morning, and he’d be curious to see how the imitation matched life.

Mr. Ellis’s accent took a sharp turn toward France. “Monsieur Courbet sounds like the man who invented fine cooking and mouth watering meals!” he proclaimed in a lofty tone. “He sounds like a man who has no time for your common, low brow dishes! A man like him can produce only the finest food, the most delicate sauce, and the sweetest dessert on the earth!”

Thomas was, by this point, doubled over and half crying with laughter. Somewhere, without quite realizing it, he’d dropped his cigarette. “Mrs. Patmore is going to hate him!”

“Probably,” Mr. Ellis allowed, using his own voice once again. “Most people do, I think, when we travel, although the Royal kitchen staff is all used to him. And I will allow that while he’s quite pompous, he is also very good at his job. The meals in the Royal servant’s hall would probably double as a light lunch for the family here.”

“Well, at least Mrs. Patmore will have the pleasure of knowing she’s being brushed aside by someone who can do some real work,” Thomas replied, trying to make it sound like a slight against Mr. Wilson rather than his earlier irritation raising it’s head ever so slightly. “Not that I think it’ll make her any sweeter on him.”

Either it worked and Mr. Ellis didn’t notice or he was quite determined to keep Thomas laughing, because his voice switched back to Mr. Wilson’s. “Are you implying, Mr. Barrow, that the King’s Page of the Backstairs can’t do real work? I will have you know that without him, the Royal household would grind to a halt. He is far more than a mere butler. Along with over seeing the male staff, arranging the Royal dinners and balls and other important functions, and, of course, decanting the wine, he is the only person who can give the rest of the house access to the Royal bed chambers!”

Thomas’s mind went several directions with that, none of them decent. At least two of them probably counted as treason. He braced himself against the wall and laughed helplessly. Honestly, his sides were beginning to hurt. 

“And do not forget his most important trait,” Mr. Ellis continued, relentless, apparently hell bent on killing his companion with laughter. “Displaying the pompous bearing the lower classes value so highly in all of their superiors. He excels at making people want to take him down a peg.”

“Including you?” Thomas managed.

“Mm, mostly I just find him ridiculous,” the other man confessed, “But I can understand why other people would want to make the effort, and I would not cry if they did.”

Thomas chuckled. It really was a beautiful day, all told, and he could cheerfully spend it all in the yard, simply enjoying the company of this dry, amusing, utterly handsome man. But he really should try and make himself useful, at least if he wanted any prayer of getting his job back after all of this. Reluctantly controlling his mirth, he looked toward the servant’s entrance. “Well, I suppose that’s enough of a break. Butler or no, I should go and find some way to make myself useful.”

“Steal the key to Lord Grantham’s bedroom,” Mr. Ellis suggested, “Then go and position yourself on the staircase leading to it. That way you can be the Earl’s Page of the Backstairs.”

It took Thomas at least three minutes to get his laughter under control again.

**Author's Note:**

> A note on the title:
> 
> Mickey Mouse is probably one of the most imitated voices in the English speaking world. He was invented in 1928 and given his first spoken lines in 1929. Therefore, while Richard can't imitate him now for obvious reasons, he will undoubtedly pick up the knack later.
> 
> He'll probably do a decent Donald too.


End file.
